


Horror Stories

by PlayerPiano



Category: Corpse Bride (2005)
Genre: Horror, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:15:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26311747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlayerPiano/pseuds/PlayerPiano
Summary: Three little nightmares inspired by "Corpse Bride."
Kudos: 12





	1. The Visitor

Officially, the visitor was there to politely and discreetly inquire about the overdue property taxes. No one in the village had seen Miss Emily or her father for nearly two months. No marketing, no deliveries, no visits. The carriage and horse were still at the livery. No word from either of them, and the village was growing worried.

And there was, of course, the smell.

To the visitor's surprise, Miss Emily herself answered the door. She was in her early twenties and was finely dressed in a gown that seemed a bit too fancy for the day. While her accident had left her blind in one eye and badly scarred on that same side of her face, she was still lovely. She'd always been the town beauty. Dark brown hair, laughing blue eyes, a shining complexion, a stately figure.

"Do come in!" Miss Emily said, stepping aside. The visitor looked around. It was dark in the narrow front hall. The staircase stretched up into more darkness. The heavy wooden doors along the passage were closed. It felt very warm, nearly humid, despite the chill of the day.

And there was that smell. The visitor tried not to breathe through their nose.

"The drawing room is just through here, will you have tea?" asked Miss Emily, smiling brightly. When the visitor refused, Miss Emily let loose a giggle. "Well, that is a relief, to tell you the truth. Our servants have all left and I can't fix a proper pot of tea to save my life!"

The visitor was led into the drawing room, offered a seat near the window. Miss Emily took a squashy armchair by the piano. The room was dim. Cobwebs hung in the corners, and a fine layer of dust coated most surfaces. The fireplace looked as though it had been cold for a long while. The smell was fainter here, for which the visitor was grateful.

And, now that the visitor had a chance to really look, Miss Emily wasn't looking at all well. She was pale. Her hair, worn in elaborate curls at the back of her head, had lost its gloss and looked lank and a little dirty. Her gown, sleeveless and covered in lace and little bows with a spill of ruffles down the back, was soiled and wrinkled, as if she'd been wearing it for a while. In the shadows her scars looked harsher, thicker, pulling at her eye and upper lip, twisting them.

"You're so kind to ask after me!" said Miss Emily. She played with her fingerless lace gloves. "You're the first to come calling since...since..."

And she began to cry. Startled, the visitor fished for a handkerchief and handed it over. Miss Emily took it with thanks. She dabbed at her good eye. The blind one was filmed over white, and always seemed to be looking off to one side.

"Excuse me," she said thinly, wiping at her nose. "Look at me, getting weepy. It's been such a difficult time. I'm sure you know. The village must be talking."

This was true, but the visitor demurred, making Miss Emily smile. When she smiled, her scars didn't look so bad anymore.

"I don't mind telling you," said Miss Emily. "You took the time to come see me! It's not a long story. My suitor proposed. My father said no. He ran my suitor off. And that was that. I've been finding it very difficult to cope, I have to admit."

The visitor made sympathetic noises. That indeed was the village gossip. A very handsome young man, a traveling salesman, had stopped in the village. He and Miss Emily had immediately taken a shine to one another. But Miss Emily, with a traveling salesman? It was no surprise her father refused to allow it. Despite Miss Emily's looks, her family had its pride. The young man had left Emily's house one evening at least two months ago, tearing down the steps, terrified. He'd run straight for the first coach out of town, hadn't even stopped at the inn for his things. What on earth had Miss Emily's father done? The visitor did not want to be tactless and ask for details.

Miss Emily's face darkened to a glower, cutting her eyes to slits. "He did it just to be horrid. How terribly mean he was, you can't possibly imagine. Thomas was lovely. He played the piano beautifully, and he could really use that sewing machine he was selling! And he loved me despite how I look."

The visitor tried to interject with more sympathy, but Miss Emily waved off the comfort with a rueful little half-smile.

"No, no, you're very sweet, but I'm not blind, you know," she said. "Well, not in both eyes! Who else would have wanted me? Thomas was special. He looked past it, he didn't mind, he loved me. Father just couldn't understand. Or didn't care."

Something big buzzed into the room and bumped loudly against a framed watercolor, breaking the spell. The visitor took a deep breath and watched the insect bounce lethargically a few times against the glass.

"Flies!" Miss Emily cried, slapping at it fruitlessly with the handkerchief. It disappeared into a high corner near the window. "They're wretched, I haven't any idea where they're coming from. Maggots, too, I've found. I'll bet you that new icebox isn't working, everything gone to rot."

The visitor nodded.

"Anyway," said Miss Emily. "Thomas and I wanted to be married. I got all dressed up and told Thomas to come by one night, to talk to my father. We were so, so happy and excited. I really thought Father would be thrilled. He wasn't."

Her tone had grown darker and darker and angrier and sadder as she spoke. When she finished, there was a deep, uncomfortable silence. Poor Miss Emily. So tragic. And at the same time, as she herself had said, clearly not coping. The state of the house. Her clothes. Her hair. No servants. So thin and haggard. The way she was staring, seeing eye flashing with remembered anger, at a spot in the middle distance. Her blind eye was tugged nearly shut by her scar as she curled her lip.

The visitor, after a throat-clearing cough, mentioned the official business. Anything to break the tension. The visitor was glad to have a reason to snap Miss Emily out of her sudden mood.

"Oh goodness, the taxes," said Miss Emily, coming back to herself fairly quickly, a blush rising in her cheeks. She looked at the proffered paperwork. "I didn't even think...Father is in his study now, shall we bring it to him? "

The drone and hum of flies was much louder here. The corridor was nearly full dark. Cobwebs swayed in their wake, and the visitor heard scuttling near the baseboards. The air was oppressive, too warm.

"Father hasn't spoken to me since he ordered Thomas away," said Miss Emily. "I was so furious with him. So furious. I did some things I shouldn't have. But Father was so cruel. He stole my life, you know. My happiness. My true love. I hate him a bit, now, to tell you the truth."

The buzzing of flies grew ever louder as they neared the back of the house. The smell was again pungent, strong, overpowering, indeed as if the icebox had stopped functioning while full of meat. The visitor gagged.

Miss Emily rapped her knuckles on the study door. "Father!" she called. "You have a visitor. Official business."

She waited, rapped again, and waited a bit more. Then Miss Emily rolled her eyes at the visitor. "You see?" she said. "He refuses to speak to me."

Miss Emily opened the door to the study. The smell nearly knocked the visitor backward. The heavy curtains were drawn. Buzzing and clicking filled the air. The visitor got a glimpse of a heavy desk, bookshelves, a marble fireplace. An armchair close by the hearth.

There sat Emily's father. What remained of him sagged in the stained, wet chair. The fireplace poker was still buried in his head.

The visitor lurched against the doorframe, faint, trying not to vomit. Miss Emily, though, huffed.

"See, not a word," said Miss Emily, angry and hurt. "I'll leave you both to it."

And she turned, chin in the air, and marched back down the corridor.


	2. The Nightmare

The nightmares were getting worse. Victoria, though weak and insensible most of the time after her fourth daughter's birth, never actually had a restful sleep. The pain was too great. And when it wasn't, there were the nightmares.

This was the most vivid, the worst yet. It felt so real.

Victoria opened her eyes to find herself in a dark corridor. Gas lights and lanterns lined the ceiling. The light coming from them was alternately deep yellow and green. Black shadows crawled up the walls. There were doors ajar all along the corridor.

Babies were crying.

Room after room, filled with cots and cribs and narrow beds, all filled with children. Dead ones. Their flesh all gone gray or blue in the half-light. Some were so tiny Victoria could have held them in the palm of her hand. Others were old enough to be moving about in walkers or in standing stools. She couldn't bear to look too long. Many of them bore marks of the illnesses or deformities or accidents that had ended their brief lives. Not all were crying. Some were giggling to themselves, full-on laughing. Some fussed, some sighed, a few sang or babbled. All noises she knew in her bones.

There were so many. So many. Victoria kept going, moving faster and faster, unable to bear any more. This was her worst nightmare. Dead children. Her children dead. Measles or scarlet fever. A burst appendix. A fall down the stairs or from their high chairs. Choking on a pin or a coin. Dead in their cradles for no reason at all. Victoria had thought obsessively about all of the possibilities, most often in the deep dark of night when she'd been awake for hours with a fussing or hungry baby. This, here, these poor babies, she'd imagined them all. Her older girls were five, seven, and eight now, and so far she'd been able to breathe cautious sighs of relief and say, Not mine. Not today. They're alive.

On and on the corridor stretched, gas lights flickering. On and on and on. Baby after baby, child upon child, giggles and cries. Eventually she came to the very last door. This room was quiet. Victoria peered inside, then nearly cried out at what she saw.

The girls. Her daughters. Lydia, Catherine, Anne. They each sat on flimsy, dirty canvas camp beds in the narrow, dingy room. Each was in her nightgown, barefoot, hair undone. Victoria rushed into the room, breathless with fear.

"You've been hurt!" she exclaimed when she was close enough to see. "Girls, what's wrong?"

For a long moment, they just stared at her. Victoria was taken aback by the deep, deep sadness in their expressions. A lingering, tense fear hung in the room. Why were her children here, among the dead ones?

The other nightmare, said a voice in Victoria's head, but she shook it away.

"Were you angry at us?" Lydia asked at last in a tired, defeated voice. The finger-marks on her thin gray neck were livid.

"We're sorry," added Catherine, her voice hoarse. There were bruises on her neck, as well.

Anne didn't say anything, just stared at her with huge, sad eyes. The neck of her nightgown was too high to see, but Victoria imagined she had marks like her sisters did.

"Of course not," Victoria said slowly. "Why on earth would I be angry with you? Who's done this to you?"

There was a sharp cry from a nearby cradle. When she looked into it she found Mary, wriggling and fussing. When Victoria reached out her arms, she gasped at the sight of her own bloody, ragged wrists. Dark red blood had turned her nightdress crimson up to the elbows. And her flesh was a pearly blue. At last, trembling, she picked Mary up, shushing and soothing, trying not to notice the unnatural way the baby's head wobbled.

The girls, gray-blue and hollow-eyed, watched her as she sat on the nearest cot. Mary quieted, gurgling to herself. There was a long silence.

The other nightmare wasn't a nightmare, said the voice.

Victoria cuddled Mary closer. She shifted the baby to make room when Anne climbed onto her lap, too, wrapping about her and clinging like a vine. Catherine scrambled to sit close beside her, and Lydia climbed up to sit behind her, chin on her shoulder. Just the very way they'd all sat on Victoria's bed, the last time she'd been alert enough to spend time with them.

The nightmare wasn't a nightmare, the voice said again, and Victoria would have been sick if she'd been able. The ghastly dream, the one she could hardly bear to remember. All pulsing, raging blood in her ears, a scene that kept going dark and then too bright. There had been screams in the dark. She hadn't been able to breathe.

She'd seen creeping vines, alive, creeping vines, swarming with insects. Uncoiling like fat snakes into the nursery, winding and slithering toward the beds, the cradle. Skittering bugs made them pulse as they moved across the floor and up the walls and over the ceilings. Vines she needed to beat back and strangle or they'd ensnare her children. And she'd strangled with all her might. Hard as she could. Anything to save her babies.

This isn't a nightmare, either.

Not a nightmare. Victoria felt her unbeating heart shatter into thousands of shards, ripping her from the inside. She looked again at her bloody wrists, flesh torn to rags, and remembered another hazy dream, one where streams of roaches had burst a mirror open and she'd been cut, and then needed to cut the roaches out of herself...not a dream either.

"But I love you so," Victoria said, at last beginning to weep. Tears she couldn't feel coursed down her cheeks, falling on the baby's face. Catherine snuggled closer, Anne burrowed more deeply, Lydia hugged her more tightly from behind. "I'd never...I'd never..."

"I heard Father say something to the doctor," Lydia murmured into her hair. "About your medicine. Before, I mean."

Dimly, she remembered Victor's voice. She's been hallucinating, I'm sure of it...there must be something else you can do...

Oh, Victor, she thought dully. What were you left to find?

"We know you didn't mean to," added Catherine, hugging her tightly around the waist. "We know you'd never."

Still Anne was silent, but she clung more tightly, pressing her face into Victoria's neck.

"Oh, girls, my loves, I am so sorry," she said, trying to kiss all of them at once. "I love you, I love you..."

"We know," said Lydia into her hair.

"We love you, too," said Catherine.

Anne nodded into her neck. Mary, quiet, was staring up at her with wide-open, trusting eyes.

Victoria began to rock, slowly, back and forth, the children swaying with her in the dimness, camp bed creaking under their dead weight.


	3. A Family Photograph

It was a cold, snowy day. Victor sat in his chair in front of the parlor window, watching small flakes swirl against a steely sky. The lawn, brown and dead, stretched out down the hill to the woods. Very bleak out there.

In here, at least, it was warm and cozy, with a fire crackling in the grate. His comfortable soft lap blanket that Victoria had knitted was thrown across his lap. Such a dozy day. He didn't feel as if he'd moved from this seat for ages. Nor did he feel the need to.

Much of the morning had passed putting together a new family photograph album. Now that there were four children there were so many photographs! He'd found a lovely one from just after Mary, the baby, had been born. He had it to show Victoria when she came in for tea.

And there she was now. The parlor door opened and he heard her soft step, the clink and rattle of the tea set when the maid brought it in. She settled herself into her usual chair, smiling at him softly.

"Have you been out?" he asked, noticing her plain dark day dress, her hat. Had he forgotten an engagement? At his parents', perhaps. That would not be unlike him.

"Yes, for a little while," she said, pouring out the tea. She handed him a cup, which he took gratefully. It was lovely to sip warm tea on a day like this. "Just to Mother's with the children."

He raised an eyebrow knowingly. "And how was the visit?" he asked, a smile in his voice.

"Short," Victoria replied with a small laugh, which she mostly hid in her teacup.

"Talking of the children, look what I found this morning," said Victor, taking the photograph from his pocket.

"This is lovely," she said, studying the photograph. "Oh, Victor. How very lovely. I'd forgotten we'd had this taken!"

A knock at the door surprised them both. In walked a tall, stately woman, perhaps in her forties or so. Victor couldn't place her. He and Victoria must know her, if she was walking into their parlor at teatime. He thought hard, concentrated on her face. Piano music came to him, the vision of a keyboard, a pair of small hands and a pair of large hands.

Ah, the childrens' piano teacher. Of course. He quickly squashed down another image, one of a rotted, one-eyed face, a ring glinting in the moonlight. His chest constricted. Where had that come from? This was the childrens' piano teacher, he knew her at once, had known her since he himself was small. She was simply paying a call because they were all fond of one another.

"Will you stay to tea?" Victoria asked her politely. Or he thought that's what she said. He could see her lips move but he couldn't hear her.

Victor shook his head a little. The woman made a reply that he didn't catch. Something strange seemed to be happening with sound all of a sudden. He could see their lips moving but only heard snatches, whispers. He dug at one ear. Sometimes the weather did strange things to his inner ear.

"We'd best be on our way," said the piano teacher. Clearly now. She gave Victor a sad sort of smile, which confused him. Had he said something wrong? Been rude? Oh dear.

To his surprise, Victoria stood and turned to follow. "Victoria, where are you going? It's teatime and it's snowing."

Victoria smiled her lovely smile, the one that lit up her eyes. His heart swelled just to look at her. "I will see our guest out," she replied. "And then I'll find a frame for this photograph. I'll join you again soon."

"Oh," said Victor, looking into his teacup. "All right."

And they left, closing the door behind them. Victor finished his tea and looked out the window again. It was snowing harder. He did hope Victoria would be back soon. The room seemed colder without her.

2

Victoria's mouth and throat were dry with nerves, but she tried to swallow anyway. She smoothed her skirt, straightened her hat, adjusted her gloves, took a deep breath. She'd been told he wouldn't hear her if she knocked, so she just opened the parlor door and went in.

It was a spare, chilly room, with a tiny fire. Victor sat propped in a chair at the window. She nearly gasped at the sight of him. She'd never have recognized him if she hadn't known who he was.

Victor was aimed toward the window, but his eyes didn't appear to be seeing anything. His thin frame had gone to gauntness, almost skeletal. His clothes hung on him. His black hair was untidy, and shot through with gray even though he was only twenty-five, the same as she.

Victoria had never been alone with him before. The doctor thought it might be a good idea, help him overcome his delusions, and her ladyship agreed. Apparently Victor was coming to sometimes. Still never speaking, he hadn't spoken a word in nearly six years, but he would draw. Sheets and sheets, for hours and hours.

Pictures of her. The doctors hadn't let her see them. They'd assured her that there was nothing indelicate or untoward, but beyond that they'd offered no details. At least he'd stopped drawing corpses in wedding dresses and skeletons in church. Victoria had shuddered at Lady Barkis' descriptions of those earlier drawings.

Why the doctors thought a visit from her would help she had no idea. When confronted with the fact that Lord and Lady Barkis were alive and well, he'd gone catatonic, after all. She didn't want to be responsible for setting him back or hurting him further. But she'd done as she was told. Perhaps this time would be different. He'd always seemed nice enough, and he'd been through terrible things. It was a good thing to try to help.

Victoria sat uneasily in a chair near to the fireplace. She looked at his profile. Close up, it was worse. Deep, dark hollows under his eyes and beneath his cheek bones. No expression. Slightly slack mouth. Those unseeing eyes. His hands, bony and old-looking, rested on his lap, on a threadbare plaid lap blanket. One finger, she saw, moved every now and then. Repetitively tapping two or three times, pausing, then beginning again.

For a while they sat that way. Victoria didn't know what to say. If she should speak at all. She'd never spoken to him in her life, not really, beyond "good morning" when they met about in the village. As soon as Lord Barkis had come to town engagement talks between her parents and his had collapsed. And the wedding hadn't been long after that, and then, of course, she and her parents had moved from their home, and that had been that.

Then, without warning, Victor moved. He whipped his head to the side nearly too fast to be human. Now he was facing her. With those hollow eyes in that skull-like face, framed by wild-looking hair. Victoria jumped, both at the sudden movement and at the full-on sight of him.

She couldn't help being frightened. The way he was holding his head, too far to the side and with his chin held out, was unnatural. Almost reptilian. Victoria's heart skipped and she tried to stay calm, to remember where the button was to call for help. But he didn't do anything else.

Just when her heartbeat had returned to normal, Victor shot out an arm toward her. This time she did cry out, jumping from her seat to get further away from him. Victoria stood trembling behind her chair, trying to swallow and not being able to. She felt a little sick.

Victor didn't move again. Just sat there with his head held in that inhuman way, holding out an arm. Then she noticed. There was a scrap of paper held tight between two of his fingers.

"Is...is that for me?" she asked. It came out barely above a whisper. No response, of course. She looked carefully at his face. Still expressionless, eyes staring into nothingness.

Hesitantly, Victoria took a few steps forward, the way she would approach a dangerous animal. She reached out her hand, keeping distance between them, just in case, and gently took the paper. It was folded over several times into a neat square. Victoria looked him in the face again, and was it her imagination, or was there just the briefest flicker of life? For a few seconds, she was sure she saw Victor in there. Then he was gone again.

But the glimpse gave her a little hope. Enough to gently, gently, fold his arm back into his lap for him. She'd been expecting rigor, but he was pliable, like a wax figure. His head, though, she didn't want to touch. Not while he was holding it that way, still pointed at her.

The door opened, and Victoria turned, pocketing the square of paper in her coat.

"Are you all right? You screamed," said Lady Barkis. Her ladyship swept into the room in her elegant dress and furs, the scent of roses wafting about her.

"Yes, your ladyship," Victoria assured her. Lady Barkis stood beside her, putting an arm around her shoulders.

"Anything?" her ladyship asked in a whisper, inclining her head at Victor.

"A little," said Victoria. "He...moved. A little. That was all."

For a long moment they stood side by side, looking at the sad, slumped figure in the chair by the window, staring at them with unfixed eyes. Lady Barkis sighed.

"Oh, Victor," she said. "You poor boy." Then she left Victoria's side to go kneel by Victor's chair. She peered up into his face, reached to touch his cheek.

"This can't be comfortable," she added in a soft, maternal voice. Without flinching, taking gentle care, Lady Barkis moved Victor's head back to center so that he was once again looking out the window. "There, now."

Victoria watched, clutching the paper in her pocket, feeling guilty for being frightened of him. But then, her ladyship had known Victor since he was small. She'd given him piano lessons for years. Victoria knew she'd been very fond of him.

"We'd best be on our way," said her ladyship, patting his hand. "We'll see you again soon, Victor."

And they left.

3

Lord Barkis was waiting for them outside. He had his cloak pulled tight against the snow and wind, his hat pulled low. His white hair, escaping from the hat, was collecting snowflakes. His face was drawn and worried.

"Emily," he said when they joined him. "How was it?"

Victoria stood just behind them, befitting her station. Sometimes it was hard for her to remember that she was a governess, a servant. But it was a position and a place to live and support for her parents, and Lord and Lady Barkis had been so kind to offer it to her when she had nowhere else to turn.

Both of them were very kind and generous to her, it had to be said. Likely due to guilt. Lord Barkis had broken off their engagement the moment he'd come to town and met Emily, the beautiful local spinster.

Not that Victoria minded. She hadn't loved him anyway, did not know him, and had dreaded the thought of marrying him. The two of them were of an age, they seemed happy, what did it matter? Victoria still held out hope she could marry for love one day. She was happy enough as she was.

"Awful," replied her ladyship, taking her husband's arm. "The poor thing."

"I would have come with you," said his lordship, "But he reacted very poorly the last time he saw me."

"Yes, I remember," said her ladyship, her voice sad.

Victoria, behind her employers' backs, took the paper Victor had given her out of her pocket and slowly, carefully, began to unfold it.

"I don't think he remembers me," her ladyship added. "He was always such a sweet, sensitive boy. Always a little sad, a little dreamy. But such a nice young man. I never once thought anything like this would happen to him. It's unfair."

When Victoria at last had the paper unfolded and saw the drawing, she hid a gasp behind her hand.

"Maybe it's too difficult for him to remember you," said his lordship heavily. "Too painful. That's what the doctor said last time."

"I know," said her ladyship, holding her husband's arm more tightly and pulling her furs more closely around herself. "I know. He's so fixated on us, you and I. On death. Thinking he saved me, somehow. Making you a villain."

Tears pricked at Victoria's eyes as she looked at the drawing. She kept her fingers pressed to her mouth. It was painful and sad and a little disturbing and a little lovely.

"He made up a story that he needed," said Lord Barkis. "It's difficult to be too offended, I don't even know the boy. And I did rather sweep in, didn't I? Maybe he needed to feel that he was a hero, somehow, with two women who loved him."

"That is so terribly sad," said her ladyship. "I can hardly bear it. You should have seen him today. Catatonic again. Not a twitch. I wonder what is going on in his mind."

The sketch was of Victoria, looking perhaps a little older. Victor had drawn himself beside her, his arm about her, also older. They were shown outside, surrounded by trees and flowers and a few butterflies. Victoria held a baby in her arms. And in front of them were three children. A tall girl had Victor's features, a boy had Victoria's, a shorter girl had a blend of them both.

They were all smiling.

"Something to keep him safe and happy, I'd imagine," said his lordship. He shrugged. "He had a major collapse, my dear. Right in the middle of our wedding! Grief, stress, hallucinations...I mean, losing his parents, then the business, his engagement falling apart..."

Lord Barkis trailed off and looked over his shoulder at Victoria, as if remembering she was there. Quickly she stuffed the drawing back in her pocket. "Miss Everglot, are you all right? You look peaked."

"I'm well, my lord, thank you," she replied automatically. Lord Barkis turned to her fully, tipped up the front of his hat. Lady Barkis, brow knotted in concern, looked at her too.

"No, be frank," he told her, in that avuncular sort of way he had. "You don't look well."

"Yes, do," agreed her ladyship, who was a sweet and emotional sort of woman. "You're very pale."

And they both looked at her now, and she felt small and young and sad and disturbed and alone. The sight of Victor's face in that parlor today was one she'd never forget. A fantasy of what might have been, something she'd also wondered about, was keeping Victor tethered, after some fashion. It was a little disturbing, but mostly unbelievably sad. Lady Barkis was right. It was unfair.

"I'm very well," Victoria repeated. "Only tired. Thank you."

Lord and Lady Barkis shared a furrowed, disbelieving look, then her ladyship laid a hand on Victoria's shoulder and said, "It was good of you to join us today. We're all that poor boy has left."

The carriage pulled up just then. Victoria stepped up to the box with the driver after Lord and Lady Barkis were settled inside. She pulled her collar up and took a lingering look at the big window on the asylum's front facade as they pulled away.

Victor was still there at the window, slumped in his chair, unmoving as the sky darkened and the snow continued to fall.

4

"I found the perfect frame," said Victoria. Victor turned when she spoke. He hadn't heard her come back, but he smiled to see her. He was pleased to see the photograph in an ornate silver frame, one that suited it perfectly.

He watched his wife gently place the photograph on the mantel. It joined their wedding portrait, and small portraits of each of their children as babies. Once it was arranged to her liking, Victoria pulled her chair alongside his.

She'd been gone so long he'd started to worry. He was glad she was back with him. Sometimes, lately, when he was alone, his mind began to wander to strange places. Funny things would happen to his eyes. The room would flicker, for instance, look darker. The furniture would be in different places. And, most worrying, there were many times when he imagined that the children and Victoria weren't in the house with him at all. Even stranger, he'd be struck by other images, as he had been earlier. Of corpses. Of a wedding ceremony. Of graves.

He tried not to dwell. And he didn't want to frighten Victoria. Everything always came back to rights in the end. As it had now.

"It's a perfect evening for a fire in the parlor," she remarked, looking out at the nearly black sky. Snow continued to swirl and to accumulate on the lawn. Victor reached and took her warm hand in his, twining their fingers together.

"It is," he agreed, squeezing her fingers.

And they sat that way for ages, looking out the window at the snow.


End file.
